Hope Center is a top secret facility hidden in the jungles of Papua New Guinea. Their purpose, on paper, was to create new food sources to feed poor and underdeveloped countries. In reality the facility was a chemical research laboratory called “Operation Sweet Death” designed for population control. A rat manages to get into the facility. It ends up causing a chemical leak and dies from the poisonous cloud. When the dead rat is found, it comes back to life and begins biting the inspection team. This results in those that are bitten turning into zombies, who in turn begin eating everyone else. Before long, communication between Hope Center and the outside world ceases.
In Barcelona, Spain a group of eco-terrorists have taken over the American consulate. They are demanding that the government close all Hope Center facilities even though the government refuses to acknowledge their existence. The hostage situation is resolved when an elite special ops team is brought in.
Four members of the special ops team, Vincent (Selan Karay), Zantoro (Franco Garofalo), Osborne (Josep Lluis Fonol) and Lt. Mike London (Jose Gras) are sent into the jungles of New Guinea to establish communication with the Hope Center that stopped transmitting. While they are traveling they come upon a reporter, Lia Rousseau (Margie Newton) and her photographer, Max (Gabriel Renom), who have already run into some zombies. They take the two civilians with them in order to keep an eye on them so they don’t tell the world of what is happening.
On the way to Hope Center the group comes across a native tribe. Lia goes into the village to pave the way for the rest. Once in the village, Lia notices that the entire village is infected with whatever happened. They flee for their lives. They make their way to an abandoned plantation where they are again attacked by zombies. Eventually the group manages to confiscate a raft to get them to the Hope facility. What awaits them is a nightmare.
“Hell of the Living Dead” AKA “Virus” was released in 1980 and was directed by Bruno Mattei. It is an Italian and Spanish horror movie.
The editing is slightly choppy. I suspect some scenes were deleted but I don’t know if it was in just the released I have or if the movie was always that way. Some stock footage is also used. This is nothing new, but some of it is said to have been taken from a documentary about death from 1979.
The acting is not great but the gore is. The special ops team is just as insane as the zombies. The zombies themselves are done decently, for the most part. Unfortunately, they stumble and sway most of the time and aren’t all that fast. The victims just stand there pathetically screaming as the zombies waddle up to them and start chomping. Then the ops guys spray the zombies randomly with machine guns knowing that they have to shoot them in the head to kill them. It ended up being a little frustrating. All together it was an average zombie movie in the sea of zombie movies done in the 80’s.
The music score was mostly music already created by Goblin for other films that they did. It’s good, but don’t be surprised if you’ve heard it before.